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Sunday, July 1, 2012

Stubbs Vineyard - Organic Grapes At Their Best

In April
(this took awhile to finish and still feels unfinished), I had the
opportunity to have a glass of wine and chat with Mary Stubbs of
Stubbs Vineyard at her home far above the vineyard. Mary is a
friendly, intelligent, lively Marinite with passions for the organic
movement, the environment, wine, art, and her family. Mary is steeped
in knowledge from her winemaker, Don Goldfield, and her former
vineyard manager Mark Pasternak.

She grew up
in Mill Valley and graduated from Tam High. After working in San
Francisco and falling in love, Mary and her husband bought this ranch
in West Marin in the 1980s. They have two sons and a daughter. In 1996,
after taking some courses on vineyards and figuring out which clones
would be best for their soil and microclimate, Tom and Mary planted
6.4 acres of Pinot Noir and 4.6 acres of Chardonnay.

The ranch
is part of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust of which Mary is a huge
fan of. She was a bit flabbergasted that I had only seen the signs
but didn't really know anything about it. MALT is a non-profit which
maintains gorgeous open space in West Marin for agricultural use
only. There are 44,100 acres with easements to MALT. As Mary put it,
"MALT is the reason West Marin looks the way it does as opposed
to Gravenstein Hwy."

Their
ranch is so far in the boonies that they rely entirely on wind and
solar panels for electricity on the farm and in their home. The water
for the vineyard's drip irrigation system is fed from a small pond at
the bottom of the vineyard. In addition to the vineyards, there are
also chickens, sheep, and llamas on the property as well as a
vegetable garden, lemon trees, and about a hundred olive trees lining
the long gravel driveway. To further show their dedication to the
environment all their farm vehicles run on bio-diesel. They also
planted the endangered
Baker's Larkspur in
the woods on their ranch.

Mary
took vineyard management classes, but since vineyard management
classes can only give you the basics and not really teach you how to
actually take care of a real vineyard, Mary hired the West Marin
vineyard expert Mark Pasternak of Devil's
Gulch Vineyards.
Mark is super friendly and estimates that he has a hand in over 75% of the vineyards in
Marin. After working with and learning from Mark for several years,
Mary took over the management of the vineyard herself.

Stubbs
Vineyard is the only certified organic vineyard in Marin. There are
a few vineyards going through certification and ones that say they
farm organically, but don't want the red tape of being certified. The
certifying agency sends out thorough auditors every 2-3 months. Most
winemakers and vineyard managers don't want to deal with that sort of
headache when it doesn't even result in higher sales unlike other
produce products. Mary estimates that the process of getting
certified and maintaining an organic vineyard takes about five times
as much work as farming conventionally, but she does it anyway
because her kids played and worked in the vineyard and it
is the right thing to do. One cool piece of equipment for organic
farming is the "Dragon" which shoots flames across the
green sprouting weeds in winter and spring to char them and keep them
from growing. This is much less effective than Round-Up, but so much
better for the environment and people in the vineyards.

The dilemma
for vineyards going organic is organic wine has a bad reputation
because in the '90s there were a lot of people who didn't know what
they were doing and made some god-awful wine under the label of
organic. So now you will rarely see organic being front and
center on a bottle of wine. The other problem is that although many
people will pay a premium for organic produce, meats, dairy, and
other food products they are not so willing to do the same for wine. Therefor even though your wine is more expensive to produce you can't charge twice as much for your fruit like an organic peach grower
would. I should note that their wine is not organic as they use
sulfites in the wine making process (99% of the world uses sulfites). Most organic grapes/wines these days are of a much higher quality than the wines that destroyed their reputation.

Mary
poured me a glass of her 2004 Pinot Noir ($44). The wine exhibited
scents of sour cherry, earth, cinnamon, ginger, lavendar, and
licorice. On my palate the sour cherries and cinnamon continued while
the ginger got spicier and earth got darker and they were joined by
hints of black pepper and cloves. The tannins were silky and the
finish lingered for a long time. The wine had a good level of acidity
which enables it to age very well, but isn't too sour and is far from
biting. This is truly a wonderful Pinot Noir of the Burgundian style
by which I mean it depends more on its structure and bouquet than
bright fruit aromas. The 2007 Pinot Noir ($44) has a very similar
profile for the fruits but instead of lavender, licorise, and pepper
I tasted sweet tobacco and savory herbs. The wine is younger so the
tannins are more soft than silky and the finish isn't quite as long,
but that will improve with age.

They
also have an '06 Merlot ($38) which was made in a cool year when
their Pinot Noir didn't full ripen and had to be sold to Schramsberg
for sparkling wine. This exemplifies how cool-climate their vineyard
is. They usually harvest Pinot when most wineries are
harvesting Cabs. The Merlot was sourced from a friend down the
road. The Merlot has scents of bitter-sweet chocolate, mocha, earth,
dark cherry, and other dark fruits. On the palate I tasted
boisenberry, sage, herbs, and dark fruit. The tannins were soft, but
still a little astringent. The wine displayed a long chocolatey
finish. They also have a Chardonnay which I did not try.

Their house
and the grounds have many art installations including: wooden
Chinese warriors that guard the hallway, the blue doors inside their
home that remind me of India, stone statues outside, a table fit for
a king, and many others.

All
photography is courtesy of Sanae Burries. If you want high res
prints, then you can email
me and
I will let her know.

Challenge Question: What is your favorite wine made with organic grapes?

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About My Blog

Nothing makes me crave good wine more than drinking flawed wine. So I'll try to steer you towards the delicious and away from the swill.

This is a blog about exploring the wide world of wine. I live in Northern California so most of the wines in this will be Californian, but I do like to travel and try new things so there will be sporadic libations from all over.